Masaru Emoto

(1943-2014)

Masaru Emoto is a Japanese author and entrepreneur, best known for his claims that human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. Emoto's hypothesis has evolved over the years of his research. Initially Emoto believes that water takes on the resonance of the energy in which is directed at it. Polluted water can be restored through prayer and positive visualization.

He shows in his children's peace book that if water has positive energy directed at it water forms beautiful and intricate crystals, and oppositely if water has negative energy directed at it the crystals come out broken, and discolored, their uniformness altered and tarnished.

Since 1999 Emoto has published several volumes of a work titled Messages from Water, which contains photographs of water crystals, and their accompanying experiements.

Emoto's ideas appeared in the documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know!?". Like the film, Emoto's work is widely considered pseudoscience by professionals, and he is criticized for going directly to the public with misleading claims that violate basic physics, based on methods that fail to properly investigate the truth of the claims.

Biography

Born in Yokohama, Japan, Emoto graduated from Yokohama Municipal University with courses in International Relations.

"In 1986, he established the I.H.M. Corporation in Tokyo and is currently the head of the I.H.M. General Research Institute, Inc., the President of I.H.M., Inc., and the chief representative of I.H.M.'s HADO Fellowship".

In 1992 he received certification as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicines in India.[4] After learning about micro-cluster water and Magnetic Resonance Analysis technology in the United States, he began studying water in more detail.

Emoto is President Emeritus of the International Water For Life Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Oklahoma City. He has three children with his wife Kazuko.

Dr. Emoto, has dedicated his life to world peace. Emoto's water crystal experiments consist of exposing water in glasses to different words, pictures, or music, and then freezing and examining the aesthetics of the resulting crystals with microscopic photography. Emoto claims that different water sources produce different crystalline structures when frozen. For example, Emoto claims that a water sample from a mountain stream would purportedly show a geometric design that is beautifully shaped when frozen. On the other hand, Emoto claims that polluted water sources will be distorted and will be randomly formed.

Criticism

Commentators have criticized Emoto for insufficient experimental controls, and for not sharing enough details of his approach with the scientific community. In addition, Emoto has been criticized for designing his experiments in ways that leave them open to human error influencing his findings.

In 2003, James Randi publicly offered Emoto one million dollars if his results can be reproduced in a double-blind study.

In 2005, Kristopher Setchfield published a paper that analyzed deeper motives regarding Emoto's study. In his paper, Setchfield writes, Unfortunately for his credibility with the scientific community, Dr. Emoto sells products based on his claims. For example, the products page of Emoto's Hado website is currently offering "geometrically perfect" "Indigo water" that is "highly charged hexagonally structured concentrate," and supposedly creates "structured water" that is "more easily assimilated at the cellular level" for $35 for an eight-ounce bottle. Without providing scientific research references for the allegedly amazing qualities of his Indigo Water.

Kristopher Setchfield, Review and analysis of Dr. Masaru Emoto's published work on the effects of external stimuli on the structural formation of ice crystals

Blinded studies

In 2006, Emoto published a paper together with Dean Radin in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. They describe that in a double blind test they conducted, 2000 people in Tokyo could increase the aesthetic appeal of water stored in a room in California solely through thought.

A better-controlled "triple-blind" follow-up study published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration did not yield positive results. More than 1,900 of Mr. Emoto's followers focused gratitude on water bottles in a vault over a period of three days. The water was then frozen and compared to two different sets of controls. Crystals from all three groups were not considered to be particularly beautiful (scoring 1.7 on a scale of 0 to 6, where 6 was very beautiful). An objective comparison of contrast did not reveal any significant differences among the samples.

Physician Harriet A. Hall wrote that "This watery fantasy is all very entertaining and imaginative, full of New Age feel-good platitudes, holistic oneness, consciousness raising, and warm fuzzies; but it's hard to see how anyone could mistake it for science."

Books

Emoto has sold 2 million copies of his books.

Messages from Water, Vol. 1 (June 1999), Hado Publishing,

Messages from Water, Vol. 2 (November 2001), Sunmark Pub.

The Hidden Messages in Water (April 2004 Eng., 2001 Jap.),

The Message from Water III: Love Thyself (January 2006), published by Hay House

Water Crystal Healing: Music & Images to Restore Your Well Being (17 October 2006), published by Atria Books

The Shape of Love: Discovering Who We Are, Where We Came From, and Where We are Going, Doubleday, 2007.